Fort Vancouver Mobile Multimedia Project - Photo by Jeff Bunch
It looks like one of the oldest historic attractions in Clark County will be connected to a new generation of modern-day visitors, thanks to a $50,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant that has been awarded to a pair of WSU Vancouver educators.
The NEH Start-Up grant was awarded to Dr. Dene Grigar, Director and Associate Professor of The Creative Media & Digital Culture Program at Washington State University Vancouver, and Adjunct Professor Brett Oppegaard.
The pair have been working for quite some time now on a mobile multimedia tour of the historic Fort Vancouver. The technology being used is cutting-edge digital, mobile, geolocation technology that brings in rich multimedia. The idea is to give visitors to Fort Vancouver a unique interactive experience – delivered to their mobile devices.
More details will be forthcoming, but Grigar said via e-mail that the grant is a major development for the project.
“A NEH grant is a prestigious one that signals the credibility of a project on a national level,” she said. “Competition for them, for that reason, is extremely fierce and landing one, as we did, is crucial to future support for the project. Access to support means a lot, not only to the project, but also to the economic well-being of the community because we will be using a large portion of the funding to pay for creative and intellectual services provided by videographers, historians, programmers, etc. associated with the project.”
A group of talented professionals has been working along with Fort staff on elements of the project. The grant will allow other, non-technical aspects of the project to go forward as well.
“On an academic level, landing a NEH means that Brett and I will be able to think more deeply about the Fort and the way gender impacted life at the site,” Grigar said. “We are able to bring students into our work. Currently Brady Berkenmeier, a senior in the CMDC Program, is creating a module highlighting the artist Paul Kane, who captured the site on his canvases.”
More project information (courtesy of Dene Grigar)
“The Fort Vancouver Mobile” Project brings together a team of 20 scholars and storytellers from throughout the digital humanities field – including historians and archaeologists as well as experts in literature, rhetoric, and writing––to create digital content for mobile phones that can be accessed by visitors to the The Village at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, in Vancouver, WA. Phase I developed “apps” for mobile phones that delivers nonfiction narrative content about the lives of Hawaiian workers of the Fort. It has resulted in the “proof of concept” for the larger project. Phase II focuses on gender and domestic issues of women whose presence at the Fort until recently has not garnered much attention.
- Phase I: Funded by Clark County Commissioners 2010 Historical Promotions Grant and 2010 WSUV Mini-Grant
- Phase II: Funded by Clark County Commissioners 2011 Historical Promotions Grant; 2011 NEH Start Up Grant
- Video, produced by CMDC student Aaron May
- Essay, “The Interrelationships of Digital Storytelling Mobile Media,” with Brett Oppegaard, forthcoming in Mobile Media Narratives, edited by Jason Farman. Book proposal for U of Minnesota Press
Related Links to Fort Vancouver Mobile Project
Project site: http://fortvancouvermobilesubrosa.blogspot.com/
Project’s YouTube video: Fort Vancouver Mobile Multimedia project trailer
Columbian.com article (2010): Grant to support interactive content for Fort Vancouver